Bitcoin Forum

I understand there are 600 other coins and that banks might be involved in trying to put in place there own mechanisms based on the blockchain but now that bitcoin has become as big as it has is there even a 10% chance that anything could replace bitcoin in the next few years.

A lot of people here like Monero.
Ethereum is quite nice too.

Do those two have caps on the number of coins? Without a cap or some limitations like bitcoin has then is it not the case that developers can go on printing money (mining coins) at whatever rate they want forever. 

Let me bold the important part. Outside of here barely anyone has any interest or has heard of them. Ethereum is using a marketing scheme itself "Bitcoin 2.0". Realistically Bitcoin has currently zero competition. Litecoin has some people that occasionally start pumping it, however it usually returns to normal levels.

The market cap of all those coins combined does not come close to Bitcoin.

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Are you talking about POS coins? No, nobody can "print out" coins at the rate at which they desire. They can only do this if they mess around with the source code and you decide to run it.

Bitcoin is the standard, but its likely that a large corporation or superpower will clone one of the existing coin schemes and sell its branding using the corporate owned media.

altcoins at this point by far aren't competetion for bitcoin. but that doesn't mean there is no chance that at some point in the future bitcoin gets replaced by something better. technology improves all the time.

I'd honestly say that there are no serious competitions for bitcoin around the cryptoworld. Most altcoins base their concepts and functionalities on bitcoin and some have either improved it or made it more efficient than those functionalities existing in bitcoin already. Monero might garnered some unique interest from people here, though I think that there is more interest building up on bitcoin recently. Same with Ethereum and Litecoin. Though these coins have some significant interest coming from bitcoin, we cannot deny the fact that money is heavily poured into bitcoin and its blockchain technology.

It all depends on how bitcoin evolves. If every step of its evolution goes like the max block size, bitcoin will be overtaken fast.

Adaptation is key.

I would say only possibly Ethereum at the moment and those are only expectations since the Ethereum devs still have to deliver the promised. But Ethereum does have a lot of hype around itself even in the outside world which no other alt does have at the moment. Just look at the last 10 days and the news articles and how many banks are actually looking into Bitcoin and Ethereum.

On the other side, some may argue that Ethereum and Bitcoin are not competition at all since the main use of ETH are smart contracts. So in a essence, these two are complementing each other.

imho, bitcoin has no real competitor for now. Many or all altcoins are purely created to make dev the financial gain, and not out of an idea of giving it's users what bitcoin offers for free.
And not only that, there's also certain advancement bitcoin as such can make, meaning it can evolve into something much grater if there ever is need of that, sxo there's no real point
of having alts, other than to test out different paths bitcoin should take in the future.

cheers

No other coin  is as popular for certain infamous things and bitcoin is the one with most negative publicity( this helps in gaining media attention), and so really I feel that other coin can gain a lot of market cap but they will never come close to bitcoin.

Yes I kinda agree. The decision and consensus making process needs to speed up, but also don't forget that we are innovating here. Maybe this is the only way, to have this kind of decision making process that takes this long. Don't forget that this is the first real decentralized process of this magnitude, this is all still a huge experiment. So let's see everything, how will this work out.

@rscholey: I don't know about the Monero but Ethereum will be limited between 90-100 million ethers by the newest change to the POS.

Ethereum can be a possible competitor, but hype alone won't take the cut and as you said, the devs should deliver first before people could actually take it as a serious alternative to bitcoin.


Yep, ETH can be used ideally in smart contracts and not as a mainstream currency as to what bitcoin is intended to be. That kinda explains why there wouldn't be no tight competition between the two.

I think Bitcoin doesn't has a competitor right now, cause they are different|they're not same thing.

Everyone is recommending Monero and Ethereum, Monero being ~0.50 US cents while Ethereum being ~0.80 US cents.
I think everyone is forgetting Litecoin. 2 USD per coin. Monero and Ethereum both have potential, but litecoin is much more per coin than both Eth and Monero.

There is no real competitors at the moment, but it will change soon. Before altcoins were created by a lonely geek in mom's basement, but now big players getting interest in blockchain technologies. States, big banks, big tech corporations. Using their huge financial and human resources, they can create really good altcoins and using their huge customer base they can make them popular. And they can move much faster than bitcoin, because they don't have bitcoin's governance problems.  ;) Even relatively small competitors, such as Russian Qiwi's rublecoins, may overtake bitcoin.

monero and litecoin are pure shit..why? they can only exist in the crypto space..no person outside this dark circle can or will use these coins. litecoin isnt meant to be for the average person..from the lack of their development u can see they only care about trading the coin and not expanding user base..tyhe coin doesnt even have its own ios wallet.

http://i62.tinypic.com/2czbo5i.png

The startups are disrupting markets including: Cloud Storage; Smart Contracts; Social Networking; Anti-Conterfeiting; Governance; Digital Identity; Supply Chain; Art & Ownership; Prediction Markets; and Internet of Things.

The companies are: Applied Blockchain, Augur (@AugurProject), Bitnation (@MyBitNation), Bitproof.io (@bitproofio), BlockVerify (@BlockVerify), Chimera, Colu (@coluplatform), Etherparty (@etherparty_io), everledger (@everledgerio), Filament (@FilamentHQ), Filecoin (@MineFilecoin), FollowMyVote (@FollowMyVote), Gems (@getgemsorg), Monegraph (@Monegraph), Onename (@onename), Otonomos (@Otonomos), ShoCard (@getShoCard), Storj (@storjproject), Swarm (@swarmfund), Synereo (@Synereo) thingchain (@thingchain), Tierion (@Tierion), Tradle (@tradles), Trustatom (@trustatom), and Verisart (@verisart).

Possibly not. There are lots of companies that accepts Bitcoin as a payment method and not most of the alt coins. Adoption is one of the factor that influence users to use them. There isn't much argument to most of the altcoins ie blocktime, anonymity. Bitcoin can achieve most of those easily. The exchange rate is much more volatile than Bitcoin too.

I still hold on to my belief that if someday bitcoin fails for that matter, it will bring down the trust people are having towards cryptocurrencies. That includes all the other altcoins.

Right now Bitcoin is not having any competition. I also believe that no competition from inside of the crypto world has to be feared. I'm way more concerned about the financial institutions who are really putting in lots of effort and money in Blockchain technology. They have the financial power, the influence in politics, media and a huge customer base to manipulate to use their own coming crypto schemes.

Also put into things to be feared that might actually interferer with bitcoin's growth: regulations and the governments of different countries. Crypto-crypto competition won't exist as bitcoin is proven to be the best among them, that's why we label other coins as an "altcoin" because it is an alternative of bitcoin, sometimes heavily-based on bitcoin's functionality and design. What I'm worried about is the governments imposing regulations and restrictions on the use of bitcoin to make it hard for people to steer it towards its growth. Banks are fine, they are putting too much money on the technology (blockchain) and we know that a centralized blockchain won't work out well.

Deliver and deliver a lot. They have promised some amazing things and they better make them true. Then again they do have a very capable de team, there shouldn't be problems here, but you really never know.

As for them competing or complementing each other, it depends. Bitcoin has a currency primacy position at the moment and holds it tight. But no doubt that people can turn to Ethereum or any other currency if Bitcoin messes something up with centralization, development, or etc.. and it's not capable to do its job efficiently.

This will have never chance to be true. Not because bitcoin is different or better than the others (maybe it is). Nor because it is the first in market and as such have slot and open this kind of market. But because behind it exist a technology, a disruptive technology, which have only him and will change to many others actually in market and will do story. This technology will support always bitcoin as a currency and bitcoin will be always a winner.

I think no, Because Bitcoin has become something like Dollar, Which has placed a value in users mind. But with a little different way as we know because of mining.

I completely agree with you. Governments can issue laws and regulate so much that it might be really difficult to use Bitcoin.
Regarding the banks it might not work out with Blockchain technology as we know and define it. But this doesn't mean they can not figure out way to use that technololy to their advantage. And I believe they will. Furthemore they will brainwash, influence the average joe and the politicians to continue using their schemes.They have done this last 100 years.Banking will change yes. But I'm really concerned that Bitcoin might not disrupt them.

there's plently of other coins similar to bitcoin, but they all lack the support bitcoin has, theres barely any people using these other coins, and theyre being pumped and dumped till they die  :P

I think the price per coin is irrelevant.
What if I made a Bitcoin fork that had a limit of only 10 coins? One coin would probably be worth a lot, but the overall market cap low.

Nice list, didn't know some of these.

There's always a competition between currencies in history. Digital currencies have no difference. Remember Satoshi's words about Bitcoin's value:

"I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume." -- Satoshi

Very large transaction volume = Bitcoin win the competition
No volume = another currency win the competition

It has no competition right now, and I do not see how that could change. But certainly it could change.

Just remember msn messenger or Internet explorer. There was a time they had "no realistic competition".

no i believe none of those other coins offers something genuinely new like bitcoin was since its begining, they offer something valuable in some cases, but it can still be implemented in the future if consensus is reached, they are not groundbreaking changes

Yes, bitcoin has competition. I think it's probably in the most competitive emerging technology space since the early 90's and the days of early internet.

And unless bitcoin can get its development house (aka core dev team) in order it will be left behind in the dust.

Bitcoin's competition is not with other currencies and coins that came after but the currency which came before it, which is fiat and so far fiat is winning but you can say that it had an early start but if bitcoin can manage to keep it's head steady for some more  years it'll definitely become the second currency used worldwide.

There's no reason to use Monero given that JoinMarket exists.

Not so sure about the bold part, knowing that at the time of this writing, bitcoin is mainly driven by whales and shorters/long-term traders and not the actual masses. Also, governments and banks are keeping a keen sense of watching things develop on bitcoin, and they might interfere sooner or later seeing how bitcoin's concept could destroy them in the future. Sure, bitcoin brought many firsts in this world, economically, politically and technologically, but that doesn't mean that it will remain robust and strong forever. In an ecosystem full of manipulators and power-hungry creatures, it is not possible to have continuous growth even in a slow pace.

Not yet, unless a new development team develops a completely innovative coin that makes bitcoin useless, then no bitcoin doesn't have any competition. In order for a coin to compete with bitcoin it needs innovative technology and a huge marketing budget.

Altcoins can't really compete with Bitcoin. The head-start and network effect of Bitcoin is too large at this point. Improvements in altcoins could for the most part, theoretically, be implemented into Bitcoin.

If you want to get the maximum effect of monetary deflation, you would only invest in one cryptocurrency that is most mature and widely accepted. That's the reason other coins, no matter how technology advanced, are monetarily disadvantaged, since they are essentially inflation in cryptocurrency world

This is a really cool image, it helps to understand it all at a glance.

 Fortunetly bitcoin has competition, Bitshares is implementating graphen technology and is creating his network of exchanges,there are some other coming,btc can be still very good if will be no more surprises like last xt fork
Btc network must improve security and decantrelised exchanges needed

there always is going to be competition for any technology that is good and new. but as far as bitcoin and all the other altcoins are concerned i don't see any near competition going on.

i mean there are a couple of altcoins that are considered TOP Altcoins but they are week competitors for bitcoin.

I noticed that all the reasons why you think that the financial institutions are going to "manipulate" the blockchain in some way, are all the reasons why bitcoin is still powerful today.  Bitconers have financial power because of the price of a btc/usd, we already have a pretty large customer base as of right now (I know it's not as big as the banks), and the media are still talking about us and politics are influenced because of us because of the possible use of using the blockchain for voting systems.  Idk, I have a feeling the bitcoin community has a larger say so than what we give our selves credit for.  If the banks are going to try and use the blockchain for their own online "coin" they copy, regular people out there would have no idea what they are trying to do and probably pull out of that bank.

As for potential competitors for bitcoin with other altcoins, there is another possibility for this... but that's not entirely a bad thing.  Monero offers more security and fungibility which could become a thing that governments and big businesses use because of the anonymity and the amount of security that comes from that, but also allows people to view the transactions with a view key that allows taxing, there fore, mass adoption.

And it's not like one coin would "take over" another coin for mass adoption... I believe that there can be multiple crypto currencies out there that offer different capabilities.  Monero for security, maybe litecoin for fast(er) everyday transactions (?), and bitcoin for the standard currency that pretty much everyone will use... Not to say that there won't be another coin in the next year or two that offers something completely different and then that will be on that list as well.

Just my two cents though :D

altcoins will remain a bit of a joke as long as bitcoin continues to improve itself, maybe one day when bitcoin is processing 50K TPS with a healthy distributed full node count there won't be any more major improvements to be had, but until that day comes, it's important for bitcoin to stay ahead of the curve with continued dev. right now there is this scaling problem, if an altcoin clams to solve it... bitcoin better be not far behind. also look at ETH a coin with a built in scripting language, bitcoin was originally designed to have the same capability, but was left out because there wasn't time to make damn sure it wouldn't expose bitcoin to a security risk. Maybe it would be a good idea to get this feature up and running soon?  MySpace could have changed its itself to compete with facebook, but it didn't so it died. this crypto currency war thing isn't much different. If bitcoin thinks it's the biggest strongest and therefore unsinkable no matter what decisions it makes, it will most definitely suffer the same faith as the titanic.

I tend to agree with all that you have written. It's very important to continue improving Bitcoin. It's not like Bitcoin is already as big as Facebook for example, has a share of users as Facebook and it's developed as Facebook is.

We are still in the beginnings of this crypto project in general. And having first mover advantage doesn't make you a winner for life. On contrary, being the leader means that you need to continue developing since everybody wants your skin. It's as simple as that.

I think that altcoins have its place. What would all trade exchanges do without them?  ;D

It is always good to have an alternative to Bitcoin that is of the same kind (i.e digital currency). I agree that probably they will never be used to buy and sell directly ... but still there is an use if only educational in trading and being something like a "backup" for Bitcoin.

No. No other coin is anywhere near it and every corporate and government 'blockchain' project is basically a completely different beast.

Overall though it's still a delicate time. Bitcoin's flaws are becoming more apparent by the day and it's still small enough to be usurped by something that addresses all of these issues straight out of the box. It's far from being out of the woods yet.

Monero should rise in time to become the yang to Bitcoin's yin.  
  
There is a need in every 'game' for both public and private moves.  
  
It would be silly to think global finance won't follow the same rules.  
  
http://puu.sh/jjNAM/b5c95ff9ef.png

Probably not. Here's the full list of known altcoins (http://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/), with market caps and trading volume. Other than Bitcoin, none of them could handle a $100K sell without crashing the market.

Some of those coins with large market caps started with a big cut for insiders, so the "market cap" is inflated. Like Paycoin. It's still on the list, but you'll have to scroll down a long way.  Remember their "guaranteed $20 floor"?  Current price is $0.016583.

Can somebody please summarize the main difference between Monero and Dash? These are pretty much 2 main stealth competitors, right? And why should Monero be so much superior? I see people mentioning Monero a lot.

Thanks

http://s24.postimg.org/kyo5l4kc5/monero.png
Monero. It's had its day. Daily volume $10,878.

monero its like litecoin and doge coin to be sable to 10 dollars into the next 2 years but not replacing 10% the btc

This post explains it well. (https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/2nu9rg/darkcoin_anoncoin_shadowcash_monero/cmh5ekr)

In my humble opinion, it is easy to see.  There are many new directions that some of the alternative technologies are taking in recent times....So, if bitcoin can't get over its governance issues and if its elite group of market manipulators can't clean up their images, then bitcoin may very well have some competition in the near future.

Exactly, and it totally depends on the adoption level of bitcoins by the people, if the adoption level is high than bitcoin would survive, but that doesn't guarantee the success of bitcoin in a long run as the technology keeps on advancing and new innovations are part and parcel of technology So I believe that it would definitely face a competition from new entrants in the future.

 
 
Think of now as beta testing.  The core has just recently become sleek and rock solid, and after that is taken care of the GUI should be trivial.  I would expect a GUI before 1st quarter 2016, after which we will likely experience a full on Monero-rush. 
 
https://i.imgur.com/K1lJTnS.jpg 
 
Looking at this logarithmic chart we can see that since birth Monero has slingshotted around a reasonable true value of about 60 cents each.  And I think that's horribly undervalued for what is basically the only cryptocoin out there with a real chance to overtake bitcoin.  Once the GUI comes out and 2016 hits there will be no reason at all for them not to be 1:1.

 
 
The other guy posted a more in depth link, but let me give you the layman's version:  Monero uses Cryptonote and ring signatures to provide true anonymity: it's a mathematically complete solution.  Dash uses something called "masternodes" to create a trick with an illusion of privacy.  The entire masternode idea is totally flawed though.  You are basically promoting some users to "mega" users which have the power to break anonymity... it's like declaring you've discovered the secret to seducing beautiful women and then taking your pants off and putting them on your head.  It's literally pants-on-head retarded. 
 
It's made worse by the fact that the launch had some extremely sketchy business going on with an alleged instant pre-mine. 
 
Dash is not a privacy solution at all, and in many ways is inferior to regular bitcoin: if privacy can be broken by *any* actor, then it's better than no one has privacy by default.  If a system guarantees privacy, then all nodes need to be regarded as equals in that aspect. 
 
Monero is what you want.  But don't believe me; keep reading and researching. 
 
It might be the most important research you ever do.

not really. the second biggest crypto is Litecoin. you can see it as a backup for bitcoin. (blocksize...?)

people say that Bitcoin is like Gold and Litecoin is like Silver.

But since Litecoin is pretty much like a replica of bitcoin and doesn't have any features that really make it stand out from bitcoin in general... doesn't that make it have the same potential flaws of block size when it gets higher and higher in price and when more people start to use it?

I've been really looking into merging my bitcoins with another coin that I like that has the best chances of success due to offering something a lot different from btc; and as of right now, I just really like monero... but idk, people can speculate all they want about which coin is going to "make it", but in reality btc can fall in an instant tomorrow and then everyone will lose.

Investing a lot of money in cryptos have always been sort of a gamble, but I like gambling.. so it fits right up my ally :)

it has value because it is the second biggest and most secure blockchain after Bitcoin.

i very optimistic that Litecoin can adapt faster than bitcoin because there are only 2-3 main Devs + C. Lee who is the creator of Litecoin.

Monero lacks marketing, almost none knows what monero even is. Most alt coins just need a huge marketing budget in order to compete with bitcoin.

The topic question should be changed to "Can Bitcoin compete with the competition?"

I believe I have one of the better/more thorough analysis of Bitcoin & altcoins right now:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1171109.0

Monero is only a little over a year old... people were essentially saying this about bitcoin back in the day, so to say that monero is not going to become very popular in the future due to the newer features that it presents doesn't bring up a very valid point imo.

maybe a coin created by a bank can overtake btc.

From a general user view, only Monero offers something of value to use it over Bitcoin

 
 
Nah, they got me.  I'm like a one-man army of Don Drapers: 
 
[NSFW link] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1067922.msg12475915#msg12475915

There are plenty of coins that are technically better and more balanced in terms of politics than Bitcoin. That's because there's no pressure on them. If they did look like taking the lead a lot of the same issues are going to pop up.

Monero may be lovely but it's going to take an awful lot to get it up there. I remember Rpetilia trying to entice people into Monero by getting them to imagine what one person putting in the proceeds of their house sale would do to the market cap. That's not a sexy prospect especially when ten more people try to buy a house from said market cap.

Bitcoin has 0 competition to get replace from where it is. Other projects can ONLY complement it and therefore make it stronger. Case in point, if Ethereum is a success it will never rplecace Bitcoins function and place, it will only compliment whatever Bitcoin cannot do in terms of smart contracts.
If Monero is a success, it will only compliment the Bitcoin ecosystem as al alternative for anonymous transactions, etc, you get the point

Yes, innovation could easily kill Bitcoin. If any current altcoin (less likely) or future provides enough advantage compared to Bitcoin then it could become number 1. This is just normal evolution, happens all the time.

We are still in the early days, is like saying back in the days if Netscape had competition.

There is not much competition, but many new cryptos already have introduced far more advanced features than bitcoin. Bitcoin, being the first of many still has the advantage because it has the biggest network supporting it! That's what gives its true value.

Do you see Wall Street investing in Litecoin or Monero?

There are much more than 600 coins already

"A few years" is a short period of time. My guess is that no existing coins have a greater than 10% chance of passing Bitcoin in the next few years.


Both of those aim to do something that bitcoin cannot do currently (but sidechains could potentially change this at least for some functions).  I am a professional chess player. Many chess players have at least heard of bitcoin. I have yet to meet one who has ever mentioned Ethereum or Monero to me.

Most people still think money is the main purpose of blockchain technology. Ethereum wants to do a lot more but it will take a lot of continued development (years) before many of those applications are available for common users.

Monero addresses privacy concerns some have about blockchain technology. The general public still thinks bitcoin is anonymous by design.  Once they realize that bitcoin has privacy issues will they suddenly want to switch? A very small percentage of the public uses a VPN or Tor. Privacy is important but I doubt enough people will agree that it is so important that a privacy focused coin will pass bitcoin in market cap within "a few years".

Change your timeframe from "a few years" to "5-10" years and I would reconsider my answer. Your 10% chance criteria sounds much more realistic over a slightly longer timeframe

Here is another question:

Do you think there is a greater than 10% chance the bitcointalk community will beat me in our current chess game?  I have been pretty impressed with the quality of play by #teambitcoin so far
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1148538

I'd ask you the same question about Bitcoin in 2011.  
  
Look at this:  
  
 
This was back when bitcoin was a haven for criminal enterprise and crazy speculation rides.  It was ludicrous to consider any respectable entity getting involved in Bitcoin and yet... here we are.  
  
Do I think governments or Wall Street will get involved in Monero?  Hell fucking yes I do, especially once they realize how much better it is than Bitcoin.

If you would ask me, that would never happen unless they shove it forcefully into our mouths. The only thing that would make us shift over some altcoins is if we find a big security loophole in bitcoin's code, which will render it valueless even if it's fixed sooner. Banks can't create a coin with a centralized blockchain. They can have all the control in fiat if they want, but they just can't do it in a cryptographically-based currency.

I can definitely see governments getting into Monero due to the ability to be secure in transactions of money to one business/government to another... but do I see it being a big player on Wall Street? Meehhhh... I don't really know about that.  It's not like Wall Street would want to use monero for any reason because why should they care about the anonymity of the transactions, and I wouldn't really see Wall Street wanting to put it in the market because, well, they want to keep S & P all fiat based.

I think it is possible for some of these up-and-comers to be competitors to bitcoin in the future but as of right now I don't see anything.

 
  
Pretend you and me want to enter a contract that neither of us can back out of, and that we want to keep totally private until a later time.  For example, pretend that we are both mega-entities that believe the price of a certain asset will move soon.  I think it will go up, and you think it will go down.  We know that if the public knows that we are betting it will change the outcome because the public will take sides. 
  
At a later point, we want the ability to reveal the existence and contents of said contract in its entirety, but also need the security that no one will discover its existence before we choose.  
  
The answer is Monero.  
  

That may be the answer, but you have to convince these megacorps to use this in the first place.

I like competition as it drives innovation. Some of the coins mentioned in this thread are indeed interesting.

The reason I voted no is because of the language in the OP:

"Is there even a 10% chance that anything could replace bitcoin in the next few years"

Smart contracts and privacy are important. A "few years" is a short time frame.

Eventually some competitor could surpass bitcoin in value because they better address these issues. Maybe bitcoin can utilize sidechains to subvert this threat. I think it will take more than a "few years" to find out.  I think there will end up being multiple competitors who end up being very successful even if they never "replace" bitcoin as the market leader.

I agree that it's possible in the next couple years, but for now I don't see people moving away from bitcoin just because bitcoin was where it all started.

Enter bitcoin's competition!  They're here!

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115282/9-banking-superpowers-unite-behind-bitcoins-blockchain-tech-op-ed?source=dogechain.info

What does that mean for the future prices of bitcoin?

That is a really interesting way of thinking about that americanpegasus, but yeah like RGBkey said it will be tough to convince the big dawgs to play in the field of monero.

But at the same time I think it's very plausible.  Hopefully with all the news about banks now getting into blockchain technology, major players in the world of Wall Street will start deciding what to do in regards of the whole crypto scene.

My concern for Monero, one I have always expressed, is the likelihood of a sidechain-type service providing equivalent privacy while leveraging Bitcoin's network effect.

I also sat at the privacy related roundtable during last week's Scaling Bitcoin conference and it was mentioned many time that Monero could face the same scaling issues as Bitcoin and possibly worse given the apparent impossibility to prune the chain.

I'm a big picture guy - I see broad strokes and connections. 
 
What I see is that we have been using the horse and buggy of cryptocurrency since 2008 and it has served us well.  However, the combustible engine (of cryptocurrency) was just invented. 
 
Is it perfect?  No, but it's light years ahead of what we've been using. 
 
Will it be all that civilization needs, forever and ever?  Maybe or maybe not - but it's the next step and it's here now.  There's no use arguing about adding small motors to horse carriages when you have the real-deal you can use instead.

I'm not sure how that holds. As much as there is value in privacy/anonymity there also is a lot in transparency.

I find myself mostly in agreement with your view that a private ledger could complement a public one but I'm not convinced this is sustainable if we somehow become able to transact privately within the public ledger.

Nice view on the matter. Bitcoin may not be the perfect engine there is to satisfy our needs, but it was indeed one of the (if not) the first of its kind to revolutionize the way we see money. Sure there may be something wrong on how we achieve x and y through bitcoin, but it greatly improved how we value money and how we look to it. There might come a time that we might be all using bitcoin as a part of our daily transactions, and there may also come a time that we may still be using fiat or any other successors of bitcoin that proved itself that it is much more ideal.

 
  
That's the thing though; you can never transact privately when you start with a public asset.  You can obfuscate the origin, kind of like proxies do now with internet traffic, but you can never have a true private asset.  Bitcoin has what.... a headstart of a million users?  That's nothing.  There are still 6.998 billion people on Earth who don't use cryptocurrency.  
  
I do see a future with a public and private ledger (perhaps even a good programmable ledger), but I am not sure which one will be more valuable.  Ask yourself... if you were a powerful company or government, how much would it be worth to you to keep trade/state secrets?  
  

There are ways that pruning can be done by Monero and other CryptoNote coins.

The idea is not theoretical. Boolberry does it today. Monero could do the same thing (or use a similar solution to solve their precise needs)
http://boolberry.org/files/Boolberry_Reduces_Blockchain_Bloat.pdf
http://boolberry.com/downloads.html

I do not think that other altcoin have any chance to remove bitcoin and become in its place because these coins are only a copy from the original thing with is bitcoin
And I think banks can not control bitcoin because it is decentralized

 
  
Monero is not a copy, goober.  It is an entirely new code base.  That's like calling Bitcoin a copy of Microsoft Excel.

I will start to get excited about Monero when its market cap is 10% or more of Bitcoin's and rapidly rising. Until then it's just another alt hyped by its fans like all the others.

All the talk in the world doesn't count for shit. Let's have results for all to see.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A983PG8CYAAv7BX.jpg

a7mos: "I'm not a goober..."

Please do not fall into this mistake of inferring Bitcoin's superiority on the basis of its userbase.

The headstart is much more than a simple number of users. It is a complex history where time, trust and capital growth are much more important than a simple assessment of its userbase. A very organic process which can scarcely be reproduced.

Have you contemplated the idea that by purchasing Monero through either fiat or Bitcoin you are also "starting" from a public asset?  ;)

 
  
It's true, the first speculators of Monero are transferring public assets into the Monero system (unless they are the lucky ones mining pure Monero).  But as the economy grows, goods and services will begin to be traded for Monero and these will be truly anonymous.  
  
As far as your initial point, let's first go back a *scant* four years to 2011:  
http://www.digitaltrends.com/android/iphone-overtakes-blackberry-to-become-top-phone-for-business-users/  
  
Secondly, let me take you back to the year 2008.  Something amazing happened that no one expected.  No, it wasn't bitcoin:  
  
http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-overtakes-myspace-globally/  
  
Let's go back a decade before that:  
  
http://www.wired.com/2009/09/0928ie-beats-netscape/  
  
Now let's step back a century:  
  
http://www.somdnews.com/article/20140108/NEWS/140109402/a-century-ago-autos-began-overtaking-horses&template=southernMaryland  
  
All these things required a superior replacement to disrupt an established competitor.  In some cases the original asset paved the way while the successor inherited the fruits of that labor with a refined version.  
  

---

 
  
Now again, I don't think Monero will completely replace Bitcoin (assuming it gets its shit together with blocksize issues) because a public ledger is valuable too.  But if you're only argument for why bitcoin is better is because "more people use it" in the face of overwhelming technological superiority... well, that's not an argument that stands up to the test of time.

Interesting. Thank you.

I'm really starting to like listening to these rants of yours lol. It's like your coaching a team of monero users and giving them a motivational speech before a "big game"... but at the same time it's like your blind and accidentally went into the wrong locker room and began giving your motivational speech to a team of bitcoin users.

Idk & idc, whatever you said has got me pumped up!

You puzzle me  ??? On one hand you make these very insightful comments and on the other you fall into the most basic of logical traps.

First, if you accept that Monero speculators also happen to only obfuscate the origin of their money then I'm not sure why you brought up the point in the first place. Providing we eventually get a private sidechain goods & services will also be sold directly for these private tokens and therefore be "truly anonymous".

Now as for as breaking down your list of new technologies that supplanted their predecessor one doesn't have to think hard to realize the parallels you attempt to make with Bitcoin do not apply.

The iPhone and automobiles were truly a technological leap over their predecessor. I'm sorry but it is absolutely a stretch to pretend that Monero can claim that. Monero boasts one important additional feature but its technological "superiority" is certainly not on the level of, for example, Bitcoin over fiat.

Other examples you've pulled up are irrelevant since they came at absolutely no cost to the user. It was trivial for users to switch from myspace to Facebook or from netscape to IE. As it relates to money that is absolutely not the case.

I think where we seem to disagree is that you suggest that Monero has "overwhelming technological superiority" where as from where I stand it really only improves on one of the many important features of money.

anything more complex then bitcoin has zero chance.


seems alot think if it came after bitcoin and is 'original' ish code then it must be better  ::)


but bitcoin does have some competition in its own shadow......litecoin. (many may laugh that off but i could list a ton of real world reasons but then again all the blinkered crytpos pseudo techie types wouldn't really listen, luckily though its not upto them).

I'm very curious to hear that.

I think it is safe to assume that bitcoin has many competition. but which of these altcoins that everybody is enthusiastically talking about can even come close to bitcoin in terms of popularity and usages , I think that is the more important question.

in the real world i'm a daytrader, also run a company that helps companies to raise funds for listing on the stockmarket, so on our books we have alot of what you call seed investors, which we continually converse with.

god if you read the forum around here bitcoin is the future of money, bitcoin is so overrated here, but in mainstream investor circles bitcoin's almost considered a joke.

i hear Winklevoss' often sayin 'you got to wonder why the smartest people in the room always are pro bitcoin', well i say 'you got to wonder why the richest person in the room never is'

and i know.

biggest killer for investors, and joe public alike is Satoshi

I didn't learn anything new here...

So you're saying they don't take Bitcoin seriously because what? Satoshi owns a shitload of them?

From my experience a majority of "mainstream investors" have little knowledge of monetary economics. They have very closed minded toward anything that doesn't fit into their box and within the boundaries of what they've learned at whatever Ivy school they went to.

I'm not pretending this is necessarily the case in regard to the "people you converse with" but you have not articulated their opinion particularly well if I may say...

Why would Satoshi be the one hindering investors to look into bitcoin? Because of having tons of bitcoins in his wallet? Well that's what most investors think: getting their big slice of the pie to gain more profits and if that doesn't fit into their 'standards' of what a good investment is, they wouldn't investigate thoroughly. They should thank Satoshi because of the potentially decreased 1 million coins in circulation and the creation of the coin itself.

 
  
Just for you, I made this special report to help you understand why Bitcoin was a significant invention in the history of money but Monero is actually the next true evolution of it.  
  
It's not just about privacy.  Every bitcoin has a unique history associated with it; it is a digital collectible.  It is not digital gold.  
  
Monero is the first digital gold.    
  
This is a very big graphic; if you reply to me, please do not quote it with the reply.  Thank you.
  
https://i.imgur.com/iuCE5lu.png

 
  
"In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
- Eric Hoffer  

"Fuck mainstream investors."  
- americanpegasus  
  
You want to see mainstream investors?  Look here: https://www.reddit.com/r/investing  
The most respected in that community are a bunch of sad and brainwashed schmucks who think the path to prosperity is following all the rules and working within the confines of the system.  To this day they think bitcoin and crypto are fringe nerd toys.  For them safety is more important than innovation.  That is the path of the sheep!  And yes, some sheep are richer than others, and some sheep can even grow to be the king of all sheep.
  
But at the end of the day they're still a fucking sheep  
  
https://i.imgur.com/QRv8Mni.png  
  
To get rich?  (I mean, really rich)  To change the world?  You have to think outside the box.  You think Buffet got so rich by following the rules?  No!  He invented modern value investing; he was doing it when no one else was, and that's why he had his advantage.  You think Bill Gates got where he is by avoiding breaking eggs and giving a fuck what mainstream investors thought?  
  
People who are heavy into crypto now are eschewing all the rules, and either the greatest technological innovation since the internet just *goes away somehow* or we will be the new financial elite eventually, same as those who got in on the ground floor of the dot-com boom and made good decisions (yes, if you go all in on Pets.com or BBQCoin you are going to lose your shirt).  
  
The future is not a safe place.  It is a wild and crazy place, full of unexpected turns and twists.  
  
It will not belong to the safe.  

It will belong to the bold.

I guess that is an interesting analysis but unfortunately not one I can agree with for the simple reason that bitcoins are absolutely and unequivocally fungible.

May I suggest: http://trilema.com/2014/guidance-there-is-no-such-thing-as-bitcoin-taint/ or http://www.contravex.com/2014/06/21/tell-the-grand-inquisitor-theres-no-fucking-bitcoin-taint/

In short, all bitcoins are obviously created equal and perception of value spawned from traceability concerns is not an indictment on Bitcoin itself.

I think this is a big wrong. Bitcoin may be fungible as a coin because all the other coins after him are almost the same so one or another may be almost the same. But you forget something very important and that make bitcoin unique. The technology behind it. This disruptive technology which will support always only bitcoin make it irreplaceable. It will be always so.

Apparently you fucked up your quotes but either way I fail to understand what Bitcoin technology has to do with its fungibility ?

It's so easy so I have not possibility to explain. The technology which invented bitcoin will support its invention and not the other coins which are the clones of it.

 
  
All I have to do is point to the time when the community agreed not to accept stolen coins from an exchange to totally destroy that argument.  
  
Bitcoins are not fungible because they have unique histories.  All swords start off identical as well, but if *this* sword has been wielded by the King of England in battle and *that* sword was taken off a dead thief after it was cursed by the local witch doctor...  Which sword do you think will be more valuable?  
  
Similarly, if *this* bitcoin is one of the original bitcoins Satoshi held, and *that* bitcoin was stolen from an exchange after being transferred there from the Silk Road, which coin will be more valuable?  
  
This chasm will only increase as time goes on...  Eventually we may see nations ban entire swathes of 'tainted' bitcoins.  
  
True fungibility is needed for a worldwide currency, and unfortunately bitcoin doesn't have it.  
  
Bitcoin was amazing, and world changing - no one is taking that away from it.  It may also carry value for a long time to come.  But Monero is the first true digital money and you are extremely lucky to be hearing it about it now - and not in 2017.

I understand where you are coming from but, again, it appears to me that you are conflating subjective perception of value (or user preference) with fungibility.

First let us examine the term we are debating and its etymology so that there is no ambiguity:
"New Latin fungibilis, from Latin fungi to perform"

Therefore what we are concerned with is whether or not one satoshi performs the same function as any others. It seems to me that for all practical purpose they do and that Bitcoin makes no distinction between any of them.

In fact, I would suggest an individual would be hard pressed to himself distinguish one satoshi from another. Consider this thought experiment:

Let us pretend I am in control of a wallet which holds a certain number of coins, using your example, stolen from said exchange.

I also happen to own a couple of what you would consider "clean" bitcoins. To illustrate my point I choose two spend two outputs, one "clean" and one "tainted", to the same input.

Looking at said input, can you tell which satoshis are "tainted" and which are not?

I'm sorry but I seemingly cannot wrap my head around this "chasm" you speak of for the simple fact that as Bitcoin adoption grows it is inevitable that satoshis will cross paths with what you call "tainted" coin, so much that at one point one could probably suggest that a majority of bitcoins in circulation have come in contact with "tainted" coins.

the only problem is what lawyers think / do when they know that you was in control of said outputs.

Seems to me then we are deriving into the anonymity/privacy problem, are we not?

I frankly fail to see how this is an indictment on Bitcoin's fungibility.   

you are right: technically bitcoin is fungible.
but i live in the real world and dont want lawyers to contact me or exchanges to block me because of social problems.

I'm not here to argue whether or not Monero or other private coins facilitate, by way of technology, more private transactions but only cared to clear the air about Bitcoin's fungibility.

My point being mostly that provided we use americanpegasus criteria, cash and gold could equally be traceable to some extent and therefore that would undermine their fungibility.

I don't think it can. So much money is invested in Bitcoin and Bitcoin companies, it's too big to fail.

the idea of crypto is an alt currency to fiat, its not about getting rich.

for any crypto to be successful its about adoption, you can think outside the box (though i am yet to see anything it crypto thinking outside the box) go the road less travelled, be bold, be uniquely innovative; but you'll be using this amazing innovative currency alone and therefore its next to completely useless.

0 to 3.5B$ market cap in 5 years is not too bad adoption is it?

Americanpegasus' point is that if your "trader" buddies wait until Bitcoin is at 1T$ market cap chances are they might just miss the boat  ;)

certainly nopt tomorrow, but it can happen in the long term if nothing new will come and bitcoin remain where it is right now, huge stagnation will kill it eventually

hows marketcap correspond to adoption as a currency  ???

as a currency bitcoin is not being used thats a fact, marketcap eludes to it being used as a fake fiat trading token, and in no way indicates anything of value.

my trader buddies know bitcoin marketcap could vaporiser or goto the moon, same as anyone.

what they know above the bitcoin crowd here is the real mechanism for bitcoin's 'price'. ie the greater fool theory;

the greater fool theory states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants. a price can be justified by a rational buyer under the belief that another party is willing to pay an even higher price. in other words, one may pay a price that seems "foolishly" high because one may rationally have the expectation that the item can be resold to a "greater fool" later.

Or sold at a loss to the next buyer to prevent even bigger loss when the trend turns ;)

This theory applies to many things, like fiat money, stocks, bonds, options, swaps, funds etc... In a word, anything that is an abstraction of value can be simply regarded as a thing that you can only dump it to the next people who accept it as payment

And when majority of the people accept it, the loop will be closed and the ecosystem will be self-sustainable like fiat money

It all depends on the reason for failure. If it is one generically applicable to all crypto that would be true. But if it is for a special cause unique to bitcoin's circumstances then it might have little effect on cryptocurrency in general. The block size debate (and how it ends) could be a case in point, since many other alts have different setups for block size as well as governance (for better or worse).

Absolutely, but at the same time I can see if Bitcoin doesn't completely fall flat and holds this relative price point of $230, I can see it being even possible for another crypto to come in the scene that improves one flaw of Bitcoin to become a complimentive currency. So as most of this thread has been saying about monero holding a better security/anonymity feature, then that currency can be a reputable compliment currency that holds value to that purpose. Or maybe if something comes to play that offers more security than monero then that currency will become the compliment currency.

Or for example, another currency came along that offers a rediculously faster confirmation time for quick and easy transactions, then that will be another compliment... I don't necessarily think Bitcoin will fall flat, it might just share its purchasing power to these complimentive cryptos that allows a user to decide what needs need to be met for the types of transaction he'll be doing.

 
  
Not at all.  I don't think you fully understand money.  Subjective perception of value is all there is.  Money only exists in the mind of those who value it.  If people don't believe that two satoshis are equal, then they are not equal.


 
  
Bitcoin does make a distinction between them by way of a public and browsable blockchain that shows you the history of any bitcoin since inception.  
  
One bitcoin does not equal one bitcoin.  

 
  
http://sabr.io/  
  
Blockchain analysis is already pretty good and only going to get better.  A plea to the ignorance of the users is not a good argument.  
  
The final nail in the coffin of bitcoin's fungibility *is* Satoshi's coins.  If all bitcoins were equal and fungible, then it shouldn't matter that Satoshi began spending his coins.  Upon receiving one you shouldn't panic that bitcoin users might start losing faith.  But when dealing with *collectibles* (which bitcoin is) then that becomes an issue.  
  
If you like fine art, and suddenly lots of famous paintings start winding up on your doorstep, you would reasonably assume that the popularity and faith in fine art is plummeting.  
  
In Monero we don't have a Satoshi.  Every user is free to transact, hold, and spend however they choose.  The currency exists independent from the history of each unit.  Gold and the dollar can be traced (with great effort as well) but they still pass the test for fungibility because without expending a massive amount of resources you can't effectively trace their history (especially with gold).  With bitcoin tracing the history of a unit is trivial, and with Monero it's impossible.  
  
You've basically strengthened my point:  
  
Monero isn't just true digital gold.  It's the equivalent of if gold automatically (and magically) went to a smelting facility every time it was spent and was melted down and mixed with other gold before coming back to the new owner.  
  
It's the best form of money that civilization has ever seen.

Agree with you, monero's fungibility is better than Bitcoin's. And fungibility is a very important property.

Fungibility aside, Monero seems to have significant drawbacks which you forgot to mention : no multisig, no SPV, no GUI, poor scalability (double size keys,...) as well as dubious security decisions (block time, difficulty retargetting, curve ...).

None of the altcoins out there are real competitors for Bitcoin. Bitcoin was the first, most used and most known digital coin. The others can try but I don't think they ever will catch up.

I agree with you for the short term, but there are new projects arrising that seem to have solved all the problems with Bitcoin.

as far as a storage of wealth goes, it will take a long time for any competitors to inherit bitcoins reign, unless of course bitcoiners decide to draw the wealth of bitcoin and put it into another project.  This is something that has been happenning slowly for the past year or so, but because bitcoin has the infrastucture to get fiat in and out it hasnt been removed from the equation.

The main problems that need to be solved.

1) speed of use:   I will never again buy dinner, coffee or many other things with Bitcoins.  it takes way to long , or it takes you removing the best and only reason to use bitcoin, its decentralized nature

2)reduction in Nodes due to resource requirements:  I am not sure why this has become a problem, probably because in general the community is full of people who just dont care.  there needs to be greater incentives to keep a node open

3)poor distribution of new coins and the centralization of mining.    all the coins are going to large bitcoin farms.

There is at least one coin that has dealt with all these problems, instant transfers, collateral based incentive paying peers, new mining algos.
 probably more than 1.
 In my opinion one of these will take over every role bitcoin has, besides maybe its ability to be a storage of wealth.
But as one of these coins begins to take over Bitcoins infrastructure, or starts having infrastructure that doesnt require bitcoin, it will quickly draw the wealth with it.

for now though, Bitcoin is King.

Cash!   :)

from past time,it has not competitor when bitcoin have a high price,but for now,bitcoin potentially have competitor.. lets see LTC or DASH

I think Mintcoin will give Bitcoin a run for its money one day.

Any platform that is a clone of Bitcoin with only a few small tweaks, can't ever really take a serious market share away from Bitcoin. 

If you talk about future if any government issues their own crypto,bitcoin will face some serious competition but that is not possible to happen in this decade so I dont see any competition for btc for next 10-15 years

Creating own cryptocurrency by any bank or Government is not a problem for bitcoin. The real competitor for bitcoin would be current fiats. Bitcoin needs to out perform them to be widely accepted and to be proffered one. When every service available for bitcoin, it means bitcoin defeated all it's competitors.

I agree, the direct clones of bitcoin aren't going to make any waves, but the innovative platforms might make a difference.

I liked this blog post http://tpbit.blogspot.ca/2015/09/the-dawn-of-great-crypto-extinction-and.html ... Copy-coins themselves aren't much competition although some of them do have community (Dogecoin) and good dev teams / adoption (Litecoin). Crypto2.0 coins do offer more competition like Ethereum and Ripple which go beyond the original code base.

I'm sorry but it is increasingly apparent to me that you are making a tragic mistake of conflating very different economic concepts.

For one, individual perception of value is quite different from the market's perception of value.

Bitcoin's traceability might make it interesting for someone with a collector's mindset but it has no impact on its fungibility.

It would be one thing for the market to disagree on the value of individual satoshis but this is absolutely impossible as they are totally undistinguishable from one another. Let me use two different examples to show why your analysis fail:

- Certain gold artifacts are valued at way more important prices then the actual market worth of their weight in gold. Does that make gold a "collectible"?

- A lot of people enjoy collecting notes and coins from certain years. A bundle of cash stolen from a bank might be identified and refused in certain circumstances because of its serial number. Does that make cash a "collectible"?

These two examples, I believe, demonstrate that what you refer to as an absence of fungibility is simply a consequence of individual or authorities attaching subjective value to an item because of its history but this is not an indictment on the monetary system itself!

Imagine one individual in possession of one of these gold artifacts or a special 20$ note attempts, for some unknown reason, to either trade his gold item to a pawnshop or deposit the 20$ at the bank.

What do you guess happens? If we assume the guy running the pawnshop doesn't know or care about the "symbolic" value of the item and is only concerned with its weight in gold no amount of history is going to bring him to buy said item for more than its market worth. Same for his "special bill", the cashier at the bank could not careless if it was used by Al Capone to do lines of cocaine, to her it's worth 20$ and no more.

The same logic applies for Bitcoin. If I am in possession of one of Mt. Gox's stolen coin and send it to Bitstamp, the market is not going to offer me a premium or refuse to buy it. Sure some nerds might cry foul and alert the exchange. In that case I could still head to fucking China and sell the same coin for market price on whatever their equivalent of localbitcoin is and no one will ask me any question.

I am curious why you did not address my thought experiment about the tainted coins but allow me to reiterate using your Satoshi scenario as I am confident it supports my position that no distinction can be made between two satoshis.

Let's pretend I have one of Satoshi's wallet address and decide to send him a bitcoin. How can you tell which one is mine from his stash?

In fact I do believe there is quite a lot of people that have sent him dust or coins over the years. If somehow he decides to move this lot of coins to an exchange are people somehow going to make a distinction between his original coins and whatever amount that was sent to him by these clowns? Of course no because they can't!

This effectively demonstrates that your logic does not hold. The market could careless whatever coin Satoshi decides to move, it is not the coins that matter because THEY ARE INDEED FUNGIBLE. It is their owner's decision that has a psychological impact on the market because they can identify ownership through the public ledger. Let's say we pretend that somehow someone is able to tie Satoshi's identity to a wallet/coins from...2013. Surely you would agree that the psychological impact on the market would be the same whether he decides to move these coins to BitStamp or the "original" ones.

Your "famous painting" example is downright stupid. If these would end up on my doorstep tomorrow one could only wonder who the fuck was stupid enough to pull off such a move and collectors all over the world will be willing to purchase them back at auction. That is because art pieces are truly a collector's item. Every paintings are unique, not "mutually interchangeable" and cannot be replaced by even an identical copy.

All of this is to say you are confusing privacy and traceability and somehow making this aspect of Bitcoin an indictment on its fungibility. Again, this is a mistake. What Monero offers is a baked-in solution for obfuscating the origins of every coin. Nothing more.

Now you're betting the house that technology isn't going to allow practical and seamless ways to do the same using Bitcoin. I would personally wager to say the odds are against you.

completely disagree. btc got alot right, why change the tried and tested, so its a good place to start.

many seem to think here original code written after btc automatically means better then btc...yet to see any that's an improvement on btc.

Isn't Ripple supposed to be what Monero was based off of? If I'm not mistaken I remember reading that Ripple was supposed to be the first of the "cryptonote" coins to come out.  I haven't even done much research on the alts because I'm lazy and want to stick to talking about something that I know a little more about like bitcoin in general.

Nop.

As much as I know the original rival of the btc is the paper money or the cash and thats it I dont think it is a big deal really.

I think it's much higher than a 10% chance.  Yes, Bitcoin is a propelling proposition, given the limited supply and the amount of people willing to pay to have a share of the it, but you might be underestimating what the central banks and other centralized powers will do to take control as far as a global currency goes.  If fiat currencies become unpopular, and people resort to gold and bitcoin, who knows what governments will do to control inflation.

The powers that be seem to be finding great success is regulating Bitcoin to the fringes and making it impractical for use as a mainstream currency. Couple that with the fact there's been no major improvements to the protocol since 2009 or 2010, and you have a recipe for disaster.

If core can't agree on a single 1-line code edit, how can bitcoin possibly compete in this world of rapid technological change.

It has lots of competition, obviously, but within the digital world itself? I would say very little. It has dominated this space.

Lol indeed. I miss the feeling to have money in my pocket. That's way I print paper wallets to got that feeling.

Do we really need any major changes?

Mention me a single coin that is competition to Bitcoin? Not even the XT fork was any competition. I don't see a single reason to use anything but Bitcoin (and solving the discrepancies inside Bitcoin Core through BIPs). Maybe Ethereum, maybe, could have a solid reason to exist in the future, and it wouldn't still be competition, ETH and BTC would compliment each other.

Has anyone seen this GNU Taler thing? They say make pretty big claims taler.net

Never heard of it before now.

Sounds like yet another tokenised fiat payment system with some bells and whistles like every other supposed 'Bitcoin killer'. As ever it's not the same thing at all. Maybe a Ripple killer but I've no idea how Ripple works so wouldn't know.

Exactly, changes are taking place whenever they are needed and we dont do major protocol changes just for fun.

Bitcoin is nowhere yet. Maybe have 10% chances to actually replace something . Forget about something to replace Bitcoin.

Bitcoin doesn't need to replace anything, well except Western Union. There are huge gaps in the today's financial markets that Bitcoin can easily fill and even improve some current solutions.

This being said, Bitcoin still has to improve a lot and earn a lot of trust in order to get a chance of doing so. The road is still long ahead, this is where I agree with you!

Nope.

Bitcoin never felt having any competition, but I think the governments and the banks do. Thats why they always trying to compete bitcoin with creating their own cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

seems a big joke what i've just read

"taxable" governments can trace the revenue of their citizens, then they say that it is "anonymous", how the hell something that his traceable is anonymous?

also it is centralized, and everything centralized isn't revolutionary to me, it's fiat garbage clone

http://taler.net/#

Well here goes another competitor down the drain or at least they are in the deep s**t. Ethereum's Vitalik just announced that they are nearly broke! How did they manage this, I don't really know!

https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/09/28/the-evolution-of-ethereum/

That's depressing, I think this is because the Bitcoin price halved instead of Ethereum failing.

Them of all people should've accounted for crypto volatility.

Bitcoin faces no competition from other decentralised cryptos. Its competition is banks stealing the blockchain technology and make there own centralised version of a crypto. They have money, clients and government support. Will be tough for bitcoin when bank cryptos get off ground.

Nope. They're perfectly happy with their existing currencies and no retail bank in living memory has ever created a standalone currency. They'll use all the blockchain wonders to make existing currencies work faster and smoother.

Banks view bitcoins as threat to the fiat currency, if we look at the present scenario than bitcoins doesn't have any competition but the things would not be the same in the future, bitcoins will definitely face some competition from new currencies in the future and the fact is that bitcoin can never replace a major currency it would be used only as a secondary currency.

Banks are not looking into creating a new currency, they are creating a new crypto in fiat units to gain the advantage of a secure fast moving payment and clearing system.

Practically bitcoin is a internet money. So, online money transaction providers are competitors for bitcoin.
1. Competitors for Bitcoin as a internet money : paypal kind of processors
2. Competitors for bitcoin as money transfer : western union
3. Competitors for bitcoin as investment : gold, shares
4. Competitors for Bitcoin as a payment processor : Visa, master card, Amex etc

I agree with you. Bitcoin cannot be made as the first currency in any country for to many reasons. But can bitcoin becomes first world currency? What do you think about this? Can you comment the ideas that you can find in this below thread?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1191118.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1191118.0)

I would thank you very much if you will write your comments after the reading.

That was my point too. And if you live in much of Europe you can move money instantly and free already. It's great for the users but does nothing to address the gripes people have with fiat that they feel Bitcoin addresses.

Well if people feel that the new currencies in future are more profitable and efficient than bitcoin, surely bitcoin will face the competition. Anything is possible to happen :)

Exactly, anything is possible in future, if people find something more attractive and profitable they won't hesitate in switching to something new and innovative as they know as they can a profit in a long run as people are very much tech-advanced they would definitely research on it and then take the next possible step, So if there is something better than bitcoins they would adopt it for sure.

For now Bitcoin is undisputed king of cryptocurrency. There is not even one altcoin close to it (Doge is second imo).
But remember - this is liquid and very unstable world, technologies comes and go, ideas fly around and changes everything.
Do you remember yahoo? No? It was once bigger than Google. And every yahoo has its google.

It's an unstable world, however Bitcoin ecosystem has huge amount of money invested in it. This means a lot of trust invested as well. No other coin is even close to this.

I am not saying that Bitcoin needs not to continue improving, but we also need not to screw something up the big time. We must be careful. Everything is in our hands.

Yes. Time changes everything.
Yahoo was bigger when google was a child. May be google outgrown yahoo.
The competitor of bitcoin may be unborn still. So, people will choose the right thing over time. The versatile thing will stand for ever.

I don't hope this because I have bitcoin in my wallet but bitcoin XT may be one of those. It is practically the same product (same qualities) but more improved in some directions (as I have heard).

paypal and others are just payment processors, so the main competition comes from fiat. and honestly I don't see bitcoin anywhere near fiat despite all of its good benefits.
also as an investment, while bitcoin has the possibility to give a good profit, at the same time the risk of losing a lot of money is also huge so I would consider other ways of investment instead of bitcoin.

The part in bold is correct according to me. I haven't heard in three years of my life with bitcoin any site which had offer profits consistently and regularly in bitcoin for a long time. Or that is live actually. Mostly of this kind of similar sites were scam which had scammed hundred and thousands of people. I think that the best way to have profits from bitcoin is to leave it in the wallet and to wait the increase of its price in the future.